Storm Warnings - Evidence of Ecological Deterioration
Storm Warnings II:
Notes from the Steve & Jenny Earth/Life Learning Center
Storm Signals...Recent news stories report:
Nineteen tropical storms, ten hurricanes were recently tracked in one of the "most active" hurricane seasons ever recorded; at the same time severe drought dried up the crops in the Northeast.
A dramatic rise in skin cancer keeps children inside and under wide-brimmed hats in Chile and Australia, where few now walk on the beaches; the increase in skin cancer cases is now becoming evident here.
The incidence of breast cancer rises explosively on Staten Island and on Long Island; it has doubled throughout the country in the past several decades.
The Great Mississippi Flood of the summer of 1993 caused an unprecedented amount of destruction to many communities, homes and businesses.
How can these disastrous events be explained?
Is the temperature on our earth's surface indeed rising, introducing increasing chaos?
Is the protective, ultra-violet screening ozone barrier in the stratosphere really disappearing, or at least becoming dangerously thin?
Are the pesticides and herbicides and other toxic agents that we create and spread about so liberally also acting as human poisons?
Did paving over the wetlands and flood plains surrounding the great river deprive it of the room necessary to absorb its periodic expansions?
These had been suggested as possible explanations. They are now increasingly strongly probable ones.
In 1995, the Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to the scientists who first identified the process by which chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals widely used as refrigerants and aerosol propellents, find their way to the stratosphere and interact with and destroy the protective ozone layer. Their work was strongly disputed by industry for many years, but even Dupont has now accepted their findings. In 1995, the hole in the ozone layer in the Northern hemisphere was found to be larger than ever.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which represents the consensus position of the international scientific community, stated in a cautiously worded draft report, that the global warming observed in this century is "unlikely to be entirely due to normal causes." In other words, human activity is changing weather patterns and climate. This is suggested in many new studies, including a study showing an increase in weather extremes since the mid- 1970's which would be indicative of the greenhouse effect.
Indications that we're recklessly destroying the habitability of our earth are increasing rapidly, yet our elected leaders are not only ignoring the warnings of the scientists but are actually defunding and destroying the warning systems we now have. Environment-related R&D was cut nearly 20% in the 1995 budget, compared to 8 % in science funding overall. Even the budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, especially the Weather Service, is being severely cut, despite 1995's extraordinary hurricane season. Scientists conducting research on global warming and radiation health effects at the Department of Energy have been told that their research will be ended. The Earth Observing System, a series of satellites being developed by NASA to monitor the earth, is in danger.
This is only the beginning. Whether it's clean water, clean air, toxic waste disposal, wetlands preservation, preservation of our national forests and parks--all protections are being recklessly discarded. The assault on these protections by this Congress is especially wanton, but, as the National Academy of Science points out, it is really a bipartisan affair. Many of the safeguards were actually first introduced during Republican administrations, but this does not seem to interfere with the zeal with which they are now being dismantled.
This is a critical time. If we are to err, it had better be on the side of caution. Certainly our sources of information, our warning signals, our canaries in the mine should be amplified, not cut back. We owe this much to the next generation, as the habitat we're passing on has become quite fragile. Further change may be irreversible.
Ruth Reisberg, for the Earth/Life Learning Center (ELLC)
